Robot vacuums have long forced buyers to choose between cleaning power and clearance. Heavy-duty wet-dry models pack enough scrubbing force to tackle stubborn, sticky messes, but their bulky frames often can’t squeeze under low furniture. Slim robot vacuums can glide beneath sofas and beds, but they typically lack the muscle to do much more than sweep up light dust. iRobot’s new Roomba Duo concept, unveiled at IFA 2026 in Berlin, aims to solve this problem with an unconventional approach that involves deploying two specialized robots to work as a team.
A heavy-duty floor washer with a companion
Instead of trying to force the two distinct jobs onto a single robot, the Roomba Duo splits the workload across two devices. The main robot functions as a dedicated floor washer, featuring a roller mop that applies 4.7kg of downward pressure alongside an internal heater for steam pre-treatment. When it hits narrow gaps or low-hanging furniture, a mechanical arm lowers a secondary companion robot to take over.
That companion unit is iRobot’s Roomba Plus 575 Combot Robot, which stands just 8.35 cm tall and uses an extending mop pad to scrub baseboards and tight corners. Both units share a single house map within the Roomba Home app and navigate using LiDAR and AI obstacle detection. After completing a run, both return to a unified base station that handles dirty water drainage, mop washing with hot air, and dustbin emptying.
iRobot looks beyond the standard puck design
This multi-robot prototype debuted alongside two standard robot vacuums at IFA 2026, including the flagship Roomba Max 875 and the mid-range Roomba Plus 678. While those traditional puck-shaped models pack high suction power and extendable mops to keep pace with rivals from Dreame and Roborock, the Duo represents a much bolder experiment.
By dividing heavy scrubbing and tight-space access across two specialized machines, iRobot is betting that two machines working together should deliver better results than a single machine trying to do everything. The company has not shared any plans to bring the Roomba Duo to the market yet, but the prototype offers a compelling look at where robot vacuums might be headed next.
